SPECIFYING AND NORMALIZING UTILITY FUNCTIONS OF PARTICIPANTS IN AN ADVERTISING EXCHANGE

• US 20080103898A1
• Filed: 04/30/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Biggs, Jody D., Flake, Gary W., Meek, Christopher A., Brewer, Brett D., Burdick, Brian, Dominowska, Ewa, Chickering, David Max
• Application Number:
  US11/742,199
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103898A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

For a multi-party advertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities, each participant can specify one or more utility functions that are invertible with respect to a common measure, such as revenue. In one non-limiting embodiment, each utility function is invertible with respect to expected revenue per standard advertising unit, e.g., expected cost per impression. The disparate utility functions of multiple participants are also normalized within the advertising exchange by converting the utility functions to the common measure enabling the comparison or translation of a first set of utility functions to a second set of utility functions in quantifiable terms. Various system refinements are provided and disclosed according to a host of optional embodiments.

Claims

1. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

a publisher broker to represent at least one publisher, wherein the publisher broker determines at least one ask for an advertisement space of the at least one publisher;

an advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the advertiser broker manages at least one bid for the advertisement space by the at least one advertiser;

an exchange to facilitate a transaction for the advertisement space between the publisher broker and the advertiser broker, wherein the publisher broker and the advertiser broker are advertising entities of disparate advertising networks, and

at least one tool that receives from the publisher broker or the advertiser broker a definition of at least one utility function of the publisher broker or the advertiser broker including a definition of at least one objective for advertising transactions of the publisher broker or the advertiser broker in the exchange.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one tool receives a definition of a preference relating to the quality of advertising involved in advertising transactions.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one tool receives a definition of a preference relating to the performance of advertising or publishing inventory involved in advertising transactions.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one tool receives a definition of a preference relating to the relevance of advertising involved in advertising transactions.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one tool receives a definition of a preference relating to the amount of risk the first participant is willing to undertake in advertising transactions.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one tool receives a definition of a tax rate relating to the amount of tax withheld by the publisher broker or advertiser broker for advertising transactions.

7. A method for inputting at least one utility function by a participant to an advertising exchange for facilitating transactions for advertisement space in an advertising exchange including a publisher broker to represent at least one publisher and an advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the publisher broker and the advertiser broker are advertising entities of disparate advertising networks, comprising:

receiving input of at least one utility function specified by a first participant of a plurality of participants in the advertising exchange, the plurality of participants including the publisher broker and the advertiser broker, where each utility function defines at least one preference of the first participant pertaining to conducting transactions in the advertising exchange; and

storing the at least one utility function for the first participant for comparison to utility functions of other participants in the advertising exchange.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving input of at least one weight specified by the first participant to be applied to a designated utility function of the at least one utility function relative to at least one other designated utility function of the at least one utility function.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

aggregating the at least one utility function according to the at least one weight to an effective utility function for the first participant.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a preference relating to the quality of advertising involved in advertising transactions.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a preference relating to the performance of advertising involved in advertising transactions.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a preference relating to the relevance of advertising involved in advertising transactions.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a preference relating to the size of commercial entities involved in advertising transactions.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a preference relating to the amount of risk the first participant is willing to undertake in advertising transactions.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving input by the first participant of a tax rate relating to the amount of tax withheld by the first participant for advertising transactions.

16. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

inverting the at least one utility function to a common measure to standardize the representation of disparate utility functions from different participants in the advertising exchange.

17. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes receiving direct or indirect input of the at least one utility function.

18. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 7.

19. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

an exchange to facilitate a plurality of transactions for advertisement space between at least one publisher and at least one advertiser across disparate advertising networks, wherein the exchange tracks quality information for advertisements, advertisement space, or advertisements and advertisement space across disparate advertising networks, wherein the exchange bases at least one advertising transaction between the at least one publisher and the at least one advertiser based on the quality information.

20. The system according to claim 19, wherein the quality information tracked by the exchange is information about performance of the advertisements, advertisement space, or advertisements and advertisement space.

21. The system according to claim 20, wherein the quality information tracked by the exchange is information about conversion rate for at least one advertisement or advertisement space of the at least one advertising transaction.

22. The system according to claim 20, wherein the quality information tracked by the exchange is information about clickthrough rate for at least one advertisement or advertisement space of the at least one advertising transaction.

23. The system according to claim 20, wherein at least one publisher or at least one advertiser opts to not share the quality information for advertisements, advertisement space, or advertisements and advertisement space with the exchange.

24. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

a publisher broker to represent at least one publisher, wherein the at least one publisher broker determines at least one ask for an advertisement space of the at least one publisher, wherein the advertisement space is keyword-based publishing inventory;

an advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the advertiser broker manages at least one bid for at least one keyword for the keyword-based publishing inventory of the at least one advertiser;

an exchange to facilitate a transaction for the advertisement space between the publisher broker and the advertiser broker wherein the bids of the at least one bid for the advertisement space by the at least one advertiser are specified either according to a first advertising cost model or according to second advertising cost model different than the first advertising cost model, whereby the exchange normalizes bids of the first and second advertising cost model as part of a transaction for the advertisement space.

25. The system according to claim 24, wherein the first advertising cost model is a cost per click (CPC) advertising cost model and the second advertising cost model is a cost per acquisition (CPA) cost model, whereby the exchange normalizes CPC bids and the CPA bids as part of a transaction for the advertisement space.